Final Fantasy 7 (Spoilers!!!!) Late-ish game thoughts

Note: I'm putting up spoiler tags, but by now this has become one of gaming's most infamous scenes, so I feel like you shouldn't care so much.

So I just thought I'd post my thoughts on the Middle Plot Twist of Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, Aerith dies near the middle of Final Fantasy 7. It's an infamous and famous scene that has garnered a lot of jokes, analyses, and sad montages over the years. One guy (TheGamingTheorist) even suggested that the entire scene should be viewed a different way, that Cloud killed.

To fill those of you who haven't heard his ideas, he says that Aerith doesn't die from Sephiroth stabbing 7 (or 9, I forget which it is) feet of steel straight through her, but instead drowns when she sinks far too far into the murky depths of a nearby pool. Go look it up if you want. Be warned: the creator, MattPatt, is fond of inappropriate imagery. Look up a transcription of his theory instead. I personally find it a bit far-fetched, but it is believable that Cloud subconsciously finished the job under Sephiroth's control. After all, shortly before this scene, Cloud was about to kill Aerith himself, albeit under the influence of Sephiroth.

Anyway, I felt like the scene was executed pretty well, however, the camera focused a bit too much on Aerith's mother's Materia bouncing away from Aerith. It kinda ruins a death scene when you literally say to yourself: "Hey look, a Materia!" instead of "Oh no! Aerith is dead!!" As far as I can tell, it's justified in that the Materia is important, it being the opposing Materia to Meteor and all, but it still kinda messed up the scene a bit.

Soon after, Sephiroth drops a Jenova boss for you to fight, as he has been doing all game. What's different is that you fight it to the sound of Aerith's theme. The boss is intentionally easy, and it seems to be nothing but a distraction. Finally, Cloud "buries" Aerith by dropping her into a nearby pool of water.

I thought the entire scene was really emotional. I'm somewhat ashamed that I wasn't all that sad, but, in my defense, I'd known all about the death scene for years previous to starting this game. All I wondered was when it would happen.

I haven't finished Final Fantasy 7 quite yet, but I've enjoyed the continuing Saga of Cloud and his motley crew trying to stop the Meteor.

Till next time,
Joseph

P.S.: To those of you who are FFVII veterens, is there supposed to be a huge difficulty spike when you get to the downed airship? I keep getting instakilled by random battle enemies.

Final Fantasy VII and Zelda: Link to the Past

I have recently bought both Final Fantasy VII and Link to the Past. I have made it a decent way through FF VII, I'm on my way to the Temple of the Ancients after a stop in Wutai. In terms of Link to the Past, I started last night(12/7), and got through to the first pendent.

I've never played either of these games before and thought I'd ask the opinion of the few people who read my blog. What do you think of them? How far am I in FF VII? (give me an approximate percentage.)

Until next time,

Joseph

Pokemon X and Y Finished and Review

So I finished Pokemon Y mid November, but I'm finally getting around to actually blogging about it. I finished the game with almost the same team I was using when I last posted. To refresh your memories, I was using:

• Greninja
• Gardevoir
• Blazikin
• Talonflame
• Raichu
• Venusaur

I ended up switching out Talonflame for the titular Dark/Flying legendary of Pokemon Y: Yveltal!!!

He was a major part of my Team as I moved through the last part of the game.

Anyway, now for some more review/thoughts!

Overall, I feel like Pokemon Y is definitely one of the best games to date. I haven't enjoyed Pokemon this much since I was playing Pokemon Pearl. Like I said before, Pokemon Black didn't really cut it for me. I didn't like it as much.

The glaring problem with X and Y is their extremely easy difficulty. I'm pretty sure I didn't have a Pokemon faint before the second Gym. I never blacked out, and the Champion was easier than any of the Elite Four. I realize this makes the games more accessible to new players, but Game Freak doesn't need to worry about selling their games anymore. They almost always break a sales record at this point.

The main reason for the lack of difficulty is probably all the new features: Pokemon-Amie, Super Training, and the return of the Exp All.

Many people may not remember this, but back in Pokemon Blue, there was an item called the Exp All that share the earned Exp between all the party members. It makes a return in the form of a toggle-able item that shares the experience to the whole party. Luckily, the item leaves half the Exp for the battling Pokemon, which works better. Through this, every Pokemon you carry is constantly leveling up in the background every so often. That means less training has to be done.

Another new thing is Pokemon-Amie, which boils down to being Nintendogs with Pokemon. You can poke them, rub them, massage them, I suppose, etc. There are also Pokepuffs you can feed them, and minigames to get more Pokepuffs. You do all this to improve "playfullness", "Happiness"(not related to in game happiness), etc. These can apparently give you boosts in battle, like a random attack raise. I've never encountered to benefits, so I really don't know.

Last of all is Super Training, which is a minigame that simplifies EV Training. You play a shooting gallery game which raises whatever stat you want it to. You can also earn punching bags that will raise a stat if you tap them repeatedly. If you don't know what EV Training is, go look it up on Bulbapedia.org.

Anyway, I enjoyed the game overall and give it a 9/10, citing the nonexistant difficulty as it's main flaw.